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IN • LOVING -MEMORY- OF 
 THE REVEREND 
 
 JAMES^BRAINARD GOODRICH 
 
 MAY- 10 1840 
 MAR- 22-1913 
 
 BLESSED ARE • THE • PURE • IN ■ HEART 
 
 THE TABLET IN S. JAMES'S CHURCH. 
 

 A SERMON 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 The Reverend 
 JAMES BRAINARD GOODRICH 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 S. JAMES'S CHURCH, BURKEHAVEN, N. H. 
 ON SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1913 
 
 BY 
 
 LUCIUS WATERMAN, D. D. 
 

 ■5>oi^M<^ 
 
 RUMFORD PRESS 
 CONCORD, N. H. 
 
S. James iii, 13. Who is a wise man and under- 
 standing among you? Let him show by his good 
 life his works with meekness of wisdom. 
 
I. 
 
 HERE is a Text from a letter of S. James, 
 and I want to begin with saying a very 
 few words about the writer of my Text. The name 
 of S. James has come, I am sure, to be a very dear 
 name to those of us who have attended Services 
 in this Church, summer after summer. But there 
 are three S. Jameses who appear before us in the 
 New Testament, and while all three have some- 
 thing about them that is interesting and memorable, 
 I hold that the one who wrote the letter should 
 be of all of them the best remembered and the best 
 loved, our own S. James especially. 
 
 He was not one of the original Apostles, if I read 
 his story aright. He is described as "the Lord's 
 brother," which means that he was one of that 
 little group of near kinsmen (probably cousins) of 
 our Lord, of whom S. John tells us that even His 
 
 [71 
 
brethren did not believe on Him. This kinsman 
 who could not believe that one of his own family 
 connection was the promised Messiah — I venture 
 to guess that it was humility, and not meanness, 
 that made it so hard for him to see that something 
 near to him was something great — seems probably 
 to be also the James to whom our Lord appeared 
 after His resurrection, as noted by S. Paul. After 
 that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles 
 (i Cor. xv, 7). When S. Paul wrote those words, 
 our James had become an Apostle, and was the 
 most conspicuous James in the whole Church. At 
 any rate, whether our Lord appeared to him 
 especially or no, our S. James became a believer, 
 and was added to the number of the Apostles, like 
 S. Paul and S. Barnabas. Then within a few years 
 he was assigned to the charge of the Church in 
 Jerusalem, so that he became the first example of 
 an Apostle localized, performing the duties of what 
 we now call a Diocesan Bishop. 
 
 Preaching from S. James's Epistle, in S. James's 
 Church, I like to tell his story in few words, and it 
 seems to me an interesting story. But certainly 
 the thing which gives him his special claim upon 
 our respect and love is his Epistle, his letter, in 
 simpler phrase, written to certain Jewish Chris- 
 tians of his day. Simplest phrases suit our S. 
 James best. He was a man of simple phrases, a 
 
 [81 
 
simple and practical man. That should give him 
 and his wise letter a certain special power of appeal 
 to the men of to-day. He was a practical man, and 
 ours is a practical age. Indeed, it may be said 
 that our age worships efficiency. Sometimes it 
 worships efficiency more than it worships God. 
 But here comes S. James to teach us better than 
 that. A man may pride himself on being practical, 
 and yet not know how to make the best of himself 
 after all. S. James did know how. He was wise 
 enough to value efficiency. He was also wise 
 enough to measure efficiency in terms of divine 
 service. In S. James's view men owed themselves 
 to God, to serve Him well, and if they did not pay 
 their debt in fulness of service, they were making 
 of life a ghastly failure. 
 
 It is a besetting temptation of the strong in all 
 ages to value efficiency for its own sake, or for 
 their own sake, selfishly, and to be very little 
 concerned as to what is, or is not, effected, so long 
 as they accomplish what they call prosperity for 
 themselves. I have indicated that our own age 
 is especially zealous for what it considers efficiency. 
 I add now that it seems to regard efficiency as 
 having two arms, knowledge and wealth. Knowl- 
 edge is the left arm, the arm of direction. Wealth 
 is the right arm, the arm of power. In face of 
 such notions, I beg you to observe that S. James, 
 
 [9l 
 
the Apostle of the practical, the man who, more 
 than any other New Testament writer, fixed his 
 eyes on efficiency as a measure of success, was 
 certainly afraid of both these forces, which seem 
 to us so beneficent and so much to be desired. 
 To him the service of God was the one true end 
 of life. Efficiency that did not conduct men to 
 that great end was no efficiency. But behold! to 
 be rich in anything, — in money, in knowledge, in 
 power, in special gifts, — was just so much of burden 
 and difficulty in the way of a real efficiency, because 
 it increased by just so much the insidious tempta- 
 tion of selfishness. And selfishness is not self- 
 protection, according to our practical-minded 
 Apostle. Selfishness is self-destruction, and noth- 
 ing else. 
 
 And yet S. James does not think of asking any 
 man to refuse any wealth that comes to him 
 naturally. Wealth of any kind is a means to some 
 of God's great ends, if it be used in God's way. 
 Only S. James would have men remember that to 
 be made responsible for having wealth, of any of 
 God's gifts, is a very solemn thing. He begins 
 the section of his letter from which my Text is 
 taken with a warning to men who have large 
 gifts of knowledge and leadership. My brethren, 
 be not many masters, we have been in the habit of 
 reading, — My brethren, be not many masters, know- 
 
 [10] 
 
ing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. 
 But "master" in the English of three hundred 
 years ago carried the idea of "teacher," as it does 
 not now, and for modern ears the American 
 Revision makes S. James's meaning far more clear, 
 — Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing 
 that we shall receive heavier judgment. 
 
 Be not many of you teachers, my brethren. "If you 
 feel that you have gifts which might be used for 
 guiding other people," is his idea, "be not eager 
 to rush into that great responsibility, but bethink 
 yourselves what a responsibility it is. We all make 
 mistakes. We all fall into sins. What are we 
 that any of us should put ourselves forward to 
 teach others the way to God?" Then the Apostle 
 goes on to give his memorable instruction about the 
 danger of sins of the tongue, and (by implication) 
 the perils of those who would make much speaking 
 the very business of their lives. But withal he 
 recognizes that some men have gifts given them 
 for just that work. Such men are responsible for 
 using their gifts. They are called to be rich. Then 
 they cannot help themselves. They may not bury 
 their talent in the earth. To these S. James 
 addresses himself in the words which I have taken 
 for a Text. It is an awful thing, the Apostle has 
 been saying, to make one's self a guide of men. 
 To those whom God has called to that work there 
 
 tni 
 
is just one thing to be said, to guide them into 
 efficiency in that work. Who is a wise man and 
 understanding among you ? Let him show by his 
 good life his works with meekness of wisdom. Let 
 us take that solemn admonition bit by bit, and 
 examine it with care. 
 
 [12] 
 
II. 
 
 WHO is wise and understanding among you? 
 S. James asks, and I am sure that there 
 is no trace of sarcasm here. The Apostle knows 
 that God has made some of His children rich in 
 these gifts of guidance, and it is to such, and not 
 to any shallow pretenders, that these words are 
 intended to be addressed. Who is wise and under- 
 standing among you? Two noteworthy gifts are 
 here indicated. Wisdom is a very great word of 
 the older Scriptures. There is a group of Books 
 (Canonical and Apocryphal) which make so much 
 of it that they are called "the Wisdom Books." 
 If I understand that teaching about wisdom which 
 the New Testament writers inherited from the 
 older writers and carried on, the wise man is he 
 who has the ability tc distinguish between great 
 and small values all through life, and the settled 
 
 [13] 
 
habit of choosing the greatest values, and not 
 giving them up to go in pursuit of lesser ones. 
 What S. James means by an understanding man, 
 or as the King James Version has it, one endued 
 with knowledge, is not so clear. It is a knowing 
 man somehow. The word is closely connected 
 with the Greek word for "a science." I get the 
 impression that S. James's understanding man is 
 not merely a " knowing" man, who knows many 
 things perhaps unrelated, but "one who knows 
 his subject," having his facts in good order, or (as 
 we say) "one who knows the business of life." To 
 know the business of life practically, and to have 
 wisdom to see and choose the highest things, — that 
 is a very great condition with which to enter 
 upon one's course through life. It ought to lead 
 to great results. S. James felt so. He felt that it 
 was worth while to tell a man so gifted the way 
 to the very highest outcome of his life. He here 
 points out that way. If any man has such wisdom 
 and knowledge as that, he will be a good man. 
 That may be assumed. He will lead a good life. 
 Of that, also, there can be no doubt. But if he 
 is to make the very best of his splendid oppor- 
 tunity of endowment, let him out of his good life 
 show his works, his fine fruit of good results, in 
 meekness of wisdom. Meekness is here the em- 
 phatic word. Wisdom has been assumed already. 
 
 in] 
 
If he is to have the very highest result, he must 
 have meekness of wisdom. My subject for to-day 
 is The Crowning of the Meek Man as a Prince 
 among the Wise. 
 
 Who is this "meek man" that he should be thus 
 a prince? The meek man is he who never makes 
 too much of himself nor asks too much for himself. 
 And seeing that none of us are great servants of 
 God, and none of us have really deserved great re- 
 wards from God, my definition carries with it that 
 he who is meek among us as well as wise will not 
 make of himself, nor ask for himself, much. For 
 such a meek man I venture to claim a double 
 crown, — a crown of happiness and a crown of ser- 
 vice. I ask your attention to some thoughts 
 concerning each of these crownings, wherewith 
 he is ennobled of God. 
 
 (a) And, first, there is the crown of happiness. 
 Blessed are the meek, says our Lord in the Sermon 
 on the Mount, — Blessed are the meek: for they shall 
 inherit the earth. S. Augustine, reading the promise 
 in Latin, in which the same word was used for 
 "earth" and "land," interprets this "land" which 
 the meek are to possess as the land of the living, 
 the earth which shall be also Heaven, when our 
 Lord comes again to raise the dead. But the same 
 S. Augustine saw also a deeper truth in these words. 
 "The faithful man," he said, "is a whole world of 
 
 [15] 
 
wealth; but the unfaithful is not worth a single 
 farthing." The fact is that the meek man regards 
 all the world as God's world. He does not ask 
 for more than his share of God's world. He does 
 not worry himself as to how much that share shall be. 
 He tries to do his work well, and fill his place well, 
 and then he takes what comes to him as God's 
 gift; and seeing in everything that comes God's 
 gift, he is for everything grateful, and perceives 
 that everything is good. Asking for nothing but 
 what God wills to give him, he has always what he 
 asked for, and is always contented, always thank- 
 ful. Happy in what God gives him the meek man 
 enjoys all his Father's world. Though his personal 
 portion may seem to men but scant, he inherits 
 the earth, and has the real use and enjoyment of it, 
 while it is all covered with legal titles of other men. 
 And do not suppose that his actual receiving 
 must be small. Nay, the meek man has a magic 
 attraction for good things. He draws love toward 
 him, and the gifts of love, and be ye sure that the 
 gifts of love bring a real happiness, where the 
 spoils of selfish warfare bring only a glittering show. 
 Come unto Me, says our Lord, offering relief to all 
 human wretchedness in its two chief lines, hard- 
 ness of work and heaviness of sorrow, — Come unto 
 Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest. How, then, does He propose 
 
 [16I 
 
to give rest from all unhappiness? Look for your- 
 selves at His next words. Take My yoke upon you, 
 and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; 
 and ye shall find rest unto your souls. When men 
 learn to be meek, in that very learning they find 
 rest. He who crowns himself with the patient 
 meekness of the Son of God, crowns himself also 
 with the happiness of the Son of God. 
 
 (b) But a godly man cannot be happy unless 
 he is doing God service in God's way. His crown- 
 ing of happiness could by no means be kept safe 
 for him, unless he had a crowning of service, too. 
 And lo! it is precisely the meek man for whom 
 the crowning of service is secure, and holds his 
 happiness secure. For efficiency in any line of 
 work depends upon wisdom in that line of work, 
 and a man cannot have any great wisdom for the 
 service of God without having much of meekness 
 and lowliness of mind. Wisdom, I said, a while 
 ago, is the capacity for distinguishing between 
 great values and small ones, with the habit of 
 preferring always the greater values to the lesser. 
 You can see that if a man thinks too much of 
 himself, or asks too much for himself, that conceit 
 or that self-seeking will be in danger of distorting 
 all the values in God's world for that man's poisoned 
 mind. The man who makes himself too large a 
 figure in his own thoughts must necessarily make 
 
 [17] 
 
God Himself too small. For such a man no 
 delicate measuring of other men's rights, or accom- 
 plishments, or needs, or sins, or sorrows, or mis- 
 takes, is possible. He cannot measure his world 
 in which he lives with our Lord's measure. He 
 cannot touch the world's needs with our Lord's 
 hand. But the meek man has the very character 
 of his Master. He can think the thoughts of his 
 Master. So it comes to pass that he can do the 
 deeds of his Master. And here it may be said 
 that no wisdom taken alone could enable a man 
 to do the service which the Lord sent him to do 
 in supplying a sick world's needs. Meekness 
 makes a man finely wise to see what ought to be 
 done; but there is a further need, and even greater. 
 Meekness cleanses a man also from the irritation 
 of selfishness, as the surgeon cleanses hands and 
 tools before touching an open wound. The world 
 is sick and sore with selfishness of its own, and a 
 selfish man cannot touch its sensitive places 
 without doing more harm than good. The meek 
 man is able to be an efficient minister of Christ, 
 because in that selfless meekness of his he can 
 touch all human weakness tenderly. 
 
 18 
 
III. 
 
 AN efficient minister of Christ!" Every Chris- 
 tian man and woman ought to be that, and 
 ought to learn meekness so as to be able to be 
 that. But S. James was thinking particularly 
 of those who were called to be teachers and guides 
 of others in the dangerous responsibility of Holy 
 Order in the Kingdom of God. And so have I 
 been thinking all this time, and so have you, 
 waiting for me to get by all generalities, perhaps 
 a little impatient of having Scripture expounded, 
 or duties preached, — and yet I felt bound, as a 
 commissioned teacher, to do both these things, 
 even on a day like this, — when we were all waiting 
 for some expression of a loving remembrance of 
 which our hearts are overflowing full. 
 
 We are offering to God, to-day, a Memorial of 
 the Rev. James Brainard Goodrich, who was Rector 
 
 [19] 
 
of Trinity Church, Claremont, and had charge of 
 pastoral ministrations in this neighborhood, when 
 this church was built, and who has been the friend 
 and guide and really the pastor of the congrega- 
 tions worshipping here from then until just now. 
 He was a man so modest and so shy of praise 
 that I am almost shy of standing here and praising 
 him. I have never known any other good man, 
 I think, who would have been quite so much sur- 
 prised, if in his life- time he could have had a vision 
 of what men would say of him after he was gone. 
 It is told of a great English Bishop,* that a mem- 
 ber of a Sisterhood, coming to him for spiritual 
 counsel, allowed herself to ask him if he had always 
 been humble. "My dear!" was the Bishop's 
 answer, "I have never been humble in my life!" 
 That is the way with the humble and meek. They 
 learn deeply that no man can measure himself 
 aright, and they give up trying to measure them- 
 selves. In fact, their one anxiety is not to think 
 of themselves too highly, and so they do not often 
 think of themselves at all, which is generally an 
 admirable rule of life. But here is a man whom 
 I have known particularly closely, and / can say 
 of him with confidence, that he was wise enough 
 
 *The Rt. Rev. Robert Gray, Bishop of Capetown and 
 Metropolitan of South Africa, 1847-1872. Life, Vol. II. p. 
 449, n. 
 
 [20] 
 
to be very meek, and meek enough to be very 
 wise. 
 
 In all his priesthood our friend had just five 
 charges, — Nashua and Lancaster in New Hamp- 
 shire, Windsor in the old Diocese of Connecticut, 
 where he was born and reared and educated, and 
 where also he was prepared for the Ministry and 
 ordained Deacon and Priest, and then Claremont 
 and Littleton in New Hampshire again, the Diocese 
 of his adoption. The five charges suggest to me 
 the five fingers of the clasping hand, with which 
 the good man lays hold on duty firmly. The duty 
 may burn, it may freeze, it may sting, the sensitive 
 hand. It always does. A good man does not 
 complain of these things, and certainly he does 
 not for any such cause let go his hold. I do not 
 mean to dwell on such trials. Every faithful 
 clergyman has them, and I simply could not think 
 of that five-parted duty without having the image 
 of the tender hand come into my mind. 
 
 But if the five ordinary pastorates suggest the 
 hand that laid hold on duty so faithfully, what 
 shall I say of Burkehaven? Ah! That was a 
 love-gift, hung by a golden chain about his neck, 
 and resting on his heart. Every one knew that 
 this Church was named with Mr. Goodrich's saint's 
 name for love of Mr. Goodrich himself. And this, 
 I think, more than any other Church where he ever 
 
 [21] 
 
ministered, was to him a window through which 
 he looked into Heaven, and a place of entering 
 into the joy of his Lord. 
 
 But wherever he went, and whatever he did, 
 our friend was ever the meek man, asking little 
 for himself. His choice of Nashua as the place 
 of his first independent work was most character- 
 istic. I remember, as if it were yesterday, sitting 
 in the Chapel of Trinity College, on an October 
 Sunday afternoon in 1870, and hearing Bishop 
 Niles preach his first sermon there after his Conse- 
 cration as Bishop of New Hampshire. He stood 
 at the desk and gave out this Text. — / will tarry 
 at Epkesus until Pentecost, for a great door and effect- 
 ual is opened unto me, and there are many adver- 
 saries (1 Cor. xvi, 8, 9). And there are many 
 adversaries, he repeated, — There are many, many 
 adversaries. One of the hearers of that sermon 
 was a lovely Christian woman, of strong character 
 and deep devotion, — I like to remember that she 
 was a daughter of the Church in Vermont, born 
 and reared in the village of Norwich, to which I 
 have been ministering for some years from Hanover, 
 New Hampshire, — and this my dear friend, Mrs. 
 Rogers, went home and reported the sermon 
 faithfully to young Mr. Goodrich, then a lodger in 
 her house, and Assistant-minister of Trinity Parish, 
 Hartford. Mr. Goodrich was considering three 
 
 [22] 
 
offers of independent work. Two of them were 
 easy and promising. Nashua was difficult, and 
 more dreadfully unhopeful than it would be fitting 
 for me here to tell. The sermon about the many 
 adversaries found a mind prepared. As any one 
 might have known who knew him, our friend took 
 the hard place. Two years and a half after he 
 went to Nashua, I saw him there, and spent a 
 night in his house. It was the only time I ever 
 heard him complain of anything in all my forty- 
 five years' knowledge of him, but then it seemed 
 as if his heart was broken, and I saw his tears. 
 But let it be noted that the burden of his grief 
 was not that he had suffered, but that he thought 
 that he had failed. He seemed to himself to have 
 been ineffective for God, and that was the one 
 thing that he could not bear. I said to him, " 'The 
 blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' and 
 you will find it so." Bishop Niles, if he were here 
 to-day, would tell you that I never spoke a truer 
 word. The meek man, who asked nothing for 
 himself, but that he might be of use somewhere, 
 had done a work which was completely hidden 
 from his own eyes, but the work was there. Because 
 he took that hard place, and suffered there, in his 
 way, it was never any such hard place again. 
 
 Of the five years in Lancaster I know but little, 
 and of the five years in Windsor, Conn., I shall 
 
 [23] 
 
tell you only what a dear friend said to me, a few 
 weeks ago, the Rector of that Parish for some 
 twenty-eight years past. He had been telling me 
 why Mr. Goodrich found the work there in some 
 ways depressing, and then he added something 
 like this, — "But when Mr. Goodrich came back 
 here for a visit, and I saw the outpouring of love 
 with which one of the men of this Parish met him, 
 I really felt a little pang of jealousy." I allow 
 myself to tell that story, because I can add that 
 my friend who thus accused himself of jealousy 
 is deeply known to me as one of the most generous 
 of men, a man without self-seeking, a man who 
 would be most strict with himself not to harbor 
 one thought of anything mean. In talking with 
 an intimate friend he did not struggle to avoid a 
 word which a stranger might misunderstand. He 
 knew that / would understand! Indeed I do. I, 
 too, have seen Mr. Goodrich come back to his old 
 Parish, — with me it was Claremont, of course, — 
 and have said to myself with a sorrow of heart 
 which, I am sure, was not a mean sorrow, "Oh! I 
 can never be to these good people, these best and 
 dearest people in my Parish, what their old Pastor 
 was to them!" No! that pang which a pastor 
 feels, when he sees that he can never do for some 
 of his people so much as another man has done for 
 them, is not necessarily a mean sorrow at all. 
 
 [24] 
 
Both my Windsor friend and I were very thankful 
 that our people had had such a man as Mr. Good- 
 rich to love, and that they had loved him well. 
 
 I have said that our "meek man" asked little 
 for himself except to be useful somewhere. In 
 Claremont he began to face one special trial, 
 which went further in Littleton, — the painful sense 
 of narrowing capacity and opportunity. Our 
 friend had never spared himself, and even in Clare- 
 mont he began to be visited with a certain failure 
 of brain and nerves, which cut him off from lines 
 of usefulness in which he had been edifying and 
 helpful in his former ministry. While judgment, 
 memory, reasoning power, and every other mental 
 gift except this one gift remained entirely unim- 
 paired, the power of formal composition, such as the 
 writing of new sermons, was taken absolutely away. 
 That was what made him ask for such a change as 
 that of leaving Claremont and going to Littleton. 
 And then after a deeply useful pastorate in Littleton, 
 which Littleton people remember most thankfully, 
 there came a time when that loving soul, who never 
 suffered any least impairment of the pastoral 
 heart that was in him, had to face the fact that 
 God did not call him to what men name "effective 
 work" any more at all, but just to the simplicity 
 of quiet rest. Through all he was the same gentle, 
 loving, unselfish soul, asking for nothing anxiously 
 
 [25] 
 
and demandingly, taking every gift of God sweetly, 
 meeting with the same serenity the things that 
 the world considers to be distresses and the things 
 which the world reckons as matters of gain and 
 good cheer. 
 
 S. Ignatius of Antioch, a Bishop and Martyr of 
 the beginning of the second century, was so fond 
 of urging upon his people that Christians received 
 the life of our Lord Jesus Christ in their Baptism, 
 and were partners in all their life with the Saviour 
 of the world, that these people of Antioch came to 
 call their Bishop by a Greek title, Theoph6ros, 
 meaning "one that carries God within him." That 
 same phrase well describes our friend, as he was 
 in those last quiet, happy years. He did not know 
 that he was doing much. He never did know that 
 about himself. But verily, when he thought that 
 he could no longer preach and teach, he was a 
 Master in Israel, preaching a Gospel most effect- 
 ively, because he "carried God within him." 
 
 He who does that cannot fail to be an effective 
 teacher and guide. S. James closes this great 
 chapter, in which he encourages us to meekness 
 of wisdom, with a glorious description of the wis- 
 dom which is from above, and which is, he might 
 have added, so high that only the lowly can lay 
 hold of it. That great wisdom, he tells us, is first 
 pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, 
 
 [26I 
 
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
 without hypocrisy. That was the wisdom of the 
 brother whom we commemorate to-day, And well 
 does S. James add that the fruit of righteousness is 
 sown in peace of them that make peace. We have 
 known it all. We have seen it with our eyes. 
 
 [27 
 
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